Howard University Jazz Ensemble: HUJE 2022

Recordings by the superb Howard University Jazz Ensemble have been surfacing like clockwork each year since shortly after the orchestra was formed in 1975 by its first (and only) music director, Fred Irby III. Sometimes the albums have overall themes, while others (such as this one) are dedicated to one or more of the university's distinguished alumni.

Andrew Nathaniel White III, a Washingtonian who graduated cum laude from Howard in 1964, was a multi-instrumentalist whose notable career spanned the worlds of jazz, classical and popular music. From 1968 to 1970, White served as principal oboist with the American Ballet Theatre. He later played electric bass with Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and the Fifth Dimension, recorded on oboe and English horn with Weather Report, and appeared as a sideman with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Kenny Clarke among others, besides performing with various ensembles including the DC-based JFK Quintet. In 2007, White was honored by Howard University with its prestigious Benny Golson Jazz Master Award. This album is a tribute to his extraordinary life and impressive accomplishments.

On HUJE 2022, the ensemble opens with one of White's engaging compositions, the jazz two-step "My Women," before moving on to charmers by Herbie Hancock, Cedar Walton, Hank Mobley, Jimmy Heath, Larry Willis and David Leonhardt, the Nat King Cole hit "Frim-Fram Sauce" and a lone standard, Willard Robison's irrepressible "Old Folks." The arrangers are Ron Horton, Mike Crotty, Scott Silbert, Joe Wright and Kevin Toney (who scored "My Women"). Alto saxophonist Langston Hughes II solos marvelously on that one, as he does on "Old Folks," Walton's "Holy Land" and "Frim-Fram Sauce." The ensemble has a number of splendid soloists, but if there is one (as is said of college football or basketball stars) who seems "destined to play at the next level," that would have to be Hughes—with trumpeter Paul Bailey and electric guitarist Kyle Rice earning honorable mention.

While there are no barn-burners on the menu ("Holy Land" comes closest), the orchestra defines each number so well that their absence is scarcely noticed. The melodies are consistently engaging, and there are admirable solos along the way by Hughes, Bailey, electric guitarists Rice and Jackson Dunkin, vibraphonist Sean MacCarthy-Grant and pianists James Woods Jr., Shomari Mbasi Hall and Alanah Butler. Brass and reeds are sharp and solid, as is the agile rhythm section. As for highlights, pick a song, any song. It is fair to assume that White would have praised and admired HUJE 2022, as would almost any partisan of first-class big-band jazz. This one is a winner from downbeat to coda.